Gelb Arthur - By Women Possessed

A rthur Gelb, my husband and collaborator of sixty-eight years, did not live to see the publication of By Women Possessed. He died on May 20, 2014, just as we were wearily polishing the last few pages of our seven-hundred-page final draft. Together, wed been wrestling with the books research and writing for almost a decade.

Semi-emerging some months later from a grief-stricken languor, I found myself, alone and tearful, tweaking those last pages (which, in the event, wed already rewritten half a dozen times). Arthurs ghost was looking over my shoulder. I nervously changed a semicolon to a period, hoping hed approve. This was, after all, his book as much as mine.

As for this preface, hell just have to trust me on my own. I hope hell be okay with it.

I T S HARD TO believe it was more than half a century ago that Arthur and I had the audacity to tackle the writing of the first full-scale biography of Eugene ONeill. I was thirty and Arthur was thirty-two. The year was 1956, three years after ONeills death at sixty-five. His last new play on Broadwayafter a silence of twelve yearshad been The Iceman Cometh, in 1946. The play was ahead of its time, the production was flawed, and it didnt have an impressive run.

Arthur and I had both been avid theatergoers since childhood, and he had recently been appointed as an assistant drama critic (covering Off-Broadway) for The New York Times. We were too young to have seen any of the original productions of ONeills earlier plays, but we had read many of them. We well knew that ONeill had once been a blazing, larger-than-life presence on the American stagethat, in fact, during the 1920s and 30s, he was the acknowledged architect of a grown-up American theater, a literary theaterpaving the way for such later innovators as Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and Edward Albee.

But after a humiliating Broadway failure (Days Without End) in 1934, ONeill had retreated into silence. His earlier successes were rarely revived during the ensuing decade, and by the mid-1950s, he was an all-but-forgotten man.

The picture changed dramatically when Long Days Journey Into Night exploded on Broadway on November 7, 1956, having been preceded six months earlier by a brilliant revival of The Iceman Cometh. ONeill, once again, was being hailed as his countrys greatest playwright, and the publishing world suddenly got the message that it was time for an ONeill biography.

Harper & Brothers, one of the most respected publishing houses of the day, wanted Brooks Atkinson to take on the jobsurely an appropriate choice. Atkinson was the powerfully influential drama critic of The New York Times. He had written many thoughtful reviews of ONeills plays and had eventually formed a warm friendship with both the dramatist and his wife.

But Atkinson demurred. At sixty-two, he said he was too old to take on so demanding a subject while also continuing as a critic for the Times.

And thats when Arthur and I came into the picture.

Atkinson managed to persuade Harpers editor in chief to give us the assignment in his stead. He introduced Arthur to the editor as his colleague and protg in the Timess drama department, praising him as a knowledgeable theater reporter and critic.

And he explained that since the Times did not give reporters leaves of absence to write books, Arthur would need the assistance of his wife, Barbara, with whom he had collaborated on numerous magazine articles and a recent well-reviewed book about Bellevue Hospital.

Atkinson also pointed out that as the stepdaughter of the playwright S. N. Behrman, a contemporary of ONeills, I had the advantage of having grown up with a theater background.

What probably clinched the argument was Atkinsons promise that he, himself, would smooth our way with ONeills widow, the former stage actress and once-renowned beauty Carlotta Monterey. He said Monterey was a vital repository of information, but she was a woman of mercurial moods. She could be contentious, and he foresaw that she would require diplomatic handling.

The upshot was that Harpers offered Arthur and me the assignmentat a considerably lower royalty than theyd offered Atkinson, of courseand we accepted.

How could we not?

For one thing, we were dying to knowalong with many other theatergoershow much of Long Days Journey actually was based on ONeills own life.

Was his mother really a morphine addict?

Was his actor-father the heavy-drinking, intermittently unfeeling skinflint portrayed in the play?

Were ONeill and his brother truly locked into the virulent sibling rivalry depicted in Long Days Journey Into Night?